52

426 LIFE AND TIMES OF FREDERICK DOUGLASS

has been rising thus from the open mouth of this mountain, and its fires are
still burning and its vapor still ascending, and no man can tell when they will
cease, or when in floods of burning lava it will again burst forth and over-
whelm unsuspecting thousands in the fate of Pompeii and Herculaneum,
cities so long buried from the world by its ashes. It is a grand spectacle to
see this vapor silently and peacefully rolling up the sky and moving off to
sea, but we shudder at the thought of what may yet befall the populous towns
and villages that still hover so daringly about its dangerous base.

Naples is a great city and its bay is all that its fame has taught us to
expect. Its beautiful surroundings rich with historical associations would
easily keep one lingering for months. Pompeii, Herculaneum, Puteoli where
St. Paul landed from his perilous voyage to Rome; the tomb of Virgil; the
spot, still traceable, where stood one of the villas of Cicero; the islands of
Capri and lschia, and a thousand other objects full of worthy interest, afford
constant activity to both reflection and imagination. Mrs. Douglass and
myself were much indebted to the kindness of Rev. J. C. Fletcher and wife
during our stay in this celebrated city.

When once an American tourist has quitted Rome and has felt the balmy
breezes of the Mediterranean; has seen the beautiful Bay of Naples; reveled
in the wonders of its neighborhood; stood at the base of Vesuvius; surveyed
the narrow streets, the majestic halls, and the luxurious houses oflong buried
Pompeii; stood upon the spot where the great apostle Paul first landed at
Puteoli, after his eventful and perilous voyage on his way to Rome; he is
generally seized with an ardent desire to wander still further eastward and
southward. Sicily will tempt him, and once there, and his face turned towards
the rising sun, he will want to see Egypt, the Suez Canal, the Libyan desert,
the wondrous Nile– land of obelisks and hieroglyphs, which men are so well
learning to read; land of sphinxes and mummies many thousand years old,
of great pyramids and colossal ruins that speak to us of a civilization which
extends back into the misty shadows of the past, far beyond the reach and
grasp of authentic history. The more he has seen of modern civilization in
England, France and Italy, the more he will want to see the traces of that
civilization which existed when these countries of Europe were inhabited by
barbarians. When once so near to this more renowned and ancient abode of
civilization, the scene of so many Bible events and wonders, the desire to see
it becomes almost irresistible.

I confess, however, that my desire to visit Egypt did not rest entirely
upon the basis thus foreshadowed. I had a motive far less enthusiastic and
sentimental; an ethnological purpose in the pursuit of which, I hoped to turn